Do you keep a knife in your sewing room? I do and it’s not for fear of bad guys bursting into my she-cave. This is why.
Picture it, Glenwood, Florida, and me happily embroidering a sweet tee for Baby Girl. The machine makes a horrible noise and the needle breaks. The hoop cannot be moved and the shirt and its design are in jeopardy. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does….groannnnn. Though it is generally thought to be the result of operator error, I prefer to think it’s those pesky sewing gremlins.
The situation seems grim. How can I save the shirt and release the hoop from the gremlins’ malice?
With that 12″ serrated knife I keep at the ready, that’s how. The blade must be long enough to reach under the hoop all the way to the thread nest. It can usually, with care, cut through the threads without damaging the shirt–or whatever is being embroidered.
After cutting through the thread mess, applying a stabilizer patch over the hole, the broken needle has to be dealt with. It’s not a good idea to throw it into my wastebasket where it can stick me when I take out the trash. So at each machine I keep a container like this empty sugar-free gum bin into which I discard broken, dull or bent needles. Before my dear husband kept me supplied with these gum jars, I used empty pill bottles. Any firm, small canister will do.
These are my tips for thread nests and broken needle storage. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.
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